It is not too sunny here, but I am going to put on my business man hat. At the end of each month, I ask myself if my business (chandoo.org that is) has performed better or worse. One simple way is to look at previous month’s numbers and then I know how good the latest month is.
But thanks to awesome people like you, my business is growing every month. So mere comparison with previous month’s values is not enough. I would like to know, for eg. if the latest month is,
- The best month ever
- The best month in last 12 months (trailing 12 months)
Now, it would be a shame if I have to find these answers manually. So I write an Excel formula. That is right!, a formula to tell me if the latest month’s value is all time best, best in last 12 months.
How to write such formulas?
Oh, the formulas are really simple. More so, if you compare it with the effort it takes to make a month all time best in sales (or any other metric).
Assuming we have a bunch of sales numbers by month in the range B6:C30,
To test for All time high condition:
- In cell D6, write =C6=MAX($C$6:C6)
- Drag the formula to fill remaining cells in column D
- Now you will see a bunch of TRUE and FALSE values. TRUE means the corresponding month’s sales is an all time high.
Tip: See how we are using $C$6:C6 in the MAX. This style of referencing is called as mixed cell referencing. By using this, when you fill the formula for remaining months, the range inside MAX grows. Thus for each month we get the maximum sales value thus far. more ».To test for Trailing 12 month high condition:
- We will test this condition in column E.
- In E17 (trailing 12 month high can not be calculated for first 11 months…) write = C17=MAX(C6:C17)
- Drag the formula to fill remaining cells in column E
- Now you will see a bunch of TRUE and FALSE values. TRUE means the corresponding month’s sales is a trailing 12 month high.
Tip: The range C6:C17 is relative. Thus when you fill the formula down, it changes to C7:C18, C8:C19… referring to previous 12 months. more ».Download Example Workbook
I have prepared a simple example file. Download it to understand these formulas.
How do you analyze your sales data?
Apart from the above techniques, I also use line charts & trend lines to understand the sales trend. Also, I use pivot tables to segment my sales based on product, customer type, region etc. Since my business is new, I do not have previous year values for many products. But where possible, I compare sales from last month same year to see how well the product has grown / shrunk. I do not set any targets at monthly level as I aim to enjoy the process. So I do not use bullet charts or target vs. actual charts per se.
What about you? How do you analyze sales or similar data? What metrics do you use to gauge the performance? Please share using comments.
8 Responses to “Pivot Tables from large data-sets – 5 examples”
Do you have links to any sites that can provide free, large, test data sets. Both large in diversity and large in total number of rows.
Good question Ron. I suggest checking out kaggle.com, data.world or create your own with randbetween(). You can also get a complex business data-set from Microsoft Power BI website. It is contoso retail data.
Hi Chandoo,
I work with large data sets all the time (80-200MB files with 100Ks of rows and 20-40 columns) and I've taken a few steps to reduce the size (20-60MB) so they can better shared and work more quickly. These steps include: creating custom calculations in the pivot instead of having additional data columns, deleting the data tab and saving as an xlsb. I've even tried indexmatch instead of vlookup--although I'm not sure that saved much. Are there any other tricks to further reduce the file size? thanks, Steve
Hi Steve,
Good tips on how to reduce the file size and / or process time. Another thing I would definitely try is to use Data Model to load the data rather than keep it in the file. You would be,
1. connect to source data file thru Power Query
2. filter away any columns / rows that are not needed
3. load the data to model
4. make pivots from it
This would reduce the file size while providing all the answers you need.
Give it a try. See this video for some help - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u7bpysO3FQ
Normally when Excel processes data it utilizes all four cores on a processor. Is it true that Excel reduces to only using two cores When calculating tables? Same issue if there were two cores present, it would reduce to one in a table?
I ask because, I have personally noticed when i use tables the data is much slower than if I would have filtered it. I like tables for obvious reasons when working with datasets. Is this true.
John:
I don't know if it is true that Excel Table processing only uses 2 threads/cores, but it is entirely possible. The program has to be enabled to handle multiple parallel threads. Excel Lists/Tables were added long ago, at a time when 2 processes was a reasonable upper limit. And, it could be that there simply is no way to program table processing to use more than 2 threads at a time...
When I've got a large data set, I will set my Excel priority to High thru Task Manager to allow it to use more available processing. Never use RealTime priority or you're completely locked up until Excel finishes.
That is a good tip Jen...